The jury in the John Edwards case is still deliberating. Although I haven’t followed the case closely, I found very interesting one evidentiary ruling that took place during the trial. Recall that the case concerns almost a million dollars that two of Edwards’ friends provided to pay the expenses of, and to hide, Edwards’ pregnant mistress during Edwards’ presidential campaign. The issue is whether the money was a campaign contribution under federal law. If so, Edwards failed to report it. Edwards contends that the money was a personal gift, and that he would have wanted to hide his mistress from, for example, his wife whether or not he was running for president. During the defense case, Edwards sought to call Scott Thomas, a former Federal Elections Commissioner. According to this news story, Thomas was expected to testify “that the payment of medical and other expenses of a candidate’s mistress isn’t a campaign-related expense.” And according to this piece, he testified during voir dire that the donations “did not qualify as federal campaign contributions under existing federal law.” United States District Judge Catherine Eagles – a former North Carolina superior court judge – excluded the testimony, apparently on the grounds that federal election law was not so complicated that the jury needed Thomas’s assistance to understand it, and that the testimony was an improper opinion akin to a closing argument. The federal cases that I was able to find quickly suggest that Judge Eagles’ ruling was proper. See, e.g., United States v. [...]
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